Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing

A Beginner’s Guide to the World of Satellite Data

Over a thousand active satellites are in orbit around the Earth with applications including navigation, the transmission of data and satellite remote sensing; a space-based technology providing data accessible to everyone. The Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing offers a complete understanding of the basic scientific principles needed to perform practical remote sensing at home or at work, using a personal computer. This book contains the information needed to effectively find, download, analyze, and view environmental data. Written by an expert with more than 15 years of experience along with the perspective of a non-expert navigating his way through remote sensing for the first time, it serves as a guidebook for anyone wanting to use remote sensing technology without becoming an expert on the subject.

The book explains the science behind remote sensing; describing what it is, how it works, and how it can be used in real life applications. Using just a standard personal computer, the authors help readers discover a wide variety of satellite imagery and how these images can be used to monitor environmental changes in real-world application areas: urban environments, natural landscape, terrestrial water cycle, and coastal environments. The book primarily concentrates on practically using optical data from the Landsat missions with further examples based on MODIS, TerraSAR-X and pre-processed datasets such as those provided by the Copernicus Services. It also provides a review of near-future developments in satellites, sensors, and the processing of data, along with a review of near-future applications and longer-term developments.

In addition, this book:

• Includes a complementary website providing additional support, satellite images, videos, updates on satellite data and a FAQ/forum to answer readers’ questions
• Gives readers detailed hands-on practical exercises on how to find, download, process and visualize freely available satellite remote sensing data, coupled with result-comparisons
• Demonstrates how satellite data can be used to provide a range of environmental monitoring for both small local areas and across the globe